With diabetes, your blood glucose runs abnormally high. It is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, stroke and kidney failure. So it's important to control your blood glucose levels. Soy flour, a product made from finely ground soybeans, can help manage your blood glucose levels. Eat foods with soy flour properly under a doctor's care.
Oxidative Stress
Eating soy flour can raise your antioxidant levels and lower oxidative stress. Oxidative stress occurs when the balance between antioxidants and oxidants in your body is disrupted. Diabetes and its complications have been shown to have a direct involvement with oxidative stress. Soy flour contains a group of antioxidants called isoflavones. You can easily get 50 to 100 mg of isoflavones by eating one to two servings of soy flour per day.
Soy Flour: A Low GI Food
The glycemic index, or GI, classifies carbohydrate-containing foods based on their blood glucose response with regard to a given amount of carbohydrate in the food. Low GI foods such as soy flour slow digestion and delay stomach emptying. This slows the release of carbohydrate, a form of sugar, into the bloodstream and helps improve blood sugar control in people with Type 2 diabetes.
High-Fiber Food
Soy flour, a high-fiber food, takes longer to empty from the stomach. Soluble fiber adds bulk to foods which absorb water in the large intestine. This increases viscosity of intestinal contents and delays digestion, increasing your "satiety" and lowering the rate of carbohydrate absorption into your bloodstream. This helps keep your insulin levels steadier. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends 38 g of fiber per day for adults, but the average intake is around 10 to 36 g a day.
High Lipid Profiles
People with diabetes are likely to have high cholesterol levels. Limit or eat fewer foods that are high in dietary cholesterol if you are diabetic. Soy flour is low in saturated fats and contains no cholesterol. You need to consume only 25 g of soy protein per day to reap its cholesterol-lowering effect. You should try to get soy protein from whole-soy foods such as soy flour and not from supplements.
References
- University of Maryland Medical Center: Diabetes; Steven D. Ehrlich; Dec. 14, 2009
- The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: Plasma antioxidant capacity in response to diets high in soy or animal protein with or without isoflavones; Sonia Vega-Lopez
- Oregon State University: Linus Pauling Institute: Legumes; Jane Higdon; December 2005
- "Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease;" Maurice Edward Shils and Moshe Shike; 2006
- University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture: The Joy of Soy; Jane Newton; April 2008
- Oregon Health & Science University: Lipid Clinic News
